


After All This Time

by chantefable



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Auror Harry, Gen, Healer Draco, Horror, Inanimate Objects, Knockturn Alley, Secret Identity, Werewolf Draco, Werewolf Harry, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-30
Updated: 2013-12-30
Packaged: 2018-03-22 16:45:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3736234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chantefable/pseuds/chantefable
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is cold, it is dark, and Draco Malfoy is haunted by nightmares. He still wards them off others, though.</p>
            </blockquote>





	After All This Time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Vaysh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vaysh/gifts).



> Written for HD Owlpost.

Darkness was crowding the streets as Draco Malfoy hurried home. He took deep breaths; the chill of the night lingered in his nostrils and on his lips. Faded lights peered at him from shopping windows, like spiders from a web, and garlands reached out with their gnarled limbs. Yule decorations fluttered as Draco trudged along, occasionally crunching a discarded bauble underfoot. It was a troubling sound, as if a whispered curse for denying the nasty garish thing a chance to live until the New Year's. Draco made himself walk on, pulling his mended cloak tighter around himself. The air tasted like snow and dirt and firewood.

He hurried down Diagon Alley, his shadow stretching behind him like a thread to follow. The coloured lights grew dim and scarce as the snow became more stained, forcing Draco to side-step frosted globs of sludge and scraps of garbage. The streetlamps blinked coldly. Another turn, another – it felt odd to be the only man out in the cold. And Draco had forgotten his gloves at Astoria's, his fingers were red and chilled to the bone. But he was in Knockturn now, almost home. 

The dark swallowed him.

He shuffled forth, his feet sliding on unseen slime on the cobblestones. A pale disc of light remained fixed further off, clinging to the lamppost as bits of litter trembled at its edges. Irritated, Draco hastened his step. He shouldn't have stayed out so long. It was always like that, one more hour past Scorpius' bedtime, one more story, one more cup of tea, one more Ministry rumour... He craved a fag now, and his warm bed. Another warm body in his bed, perhaps. Warmth.

Draco dragged a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket, nothing but touch and sense memory to guide him as he tried to light one. The wind crept past him with a low moan, slid through Draco's aching fingers and put out the match. Dammit.

He shuffled forth sluggishly, closer to the dim light. The lamp was known to dwindle away out of sheer spite; this time, however, the disc of light darted under Draco's feet, as if afraid of what was lurking deeper in the bowels of Knockturn. It contracted itself to a bright spot in the lifeless blackness, like a burning eye of a cat. At last, Draco took a long drag and looked up, exhaling smoke in the contorted glass and metal features of the lamp right above him.

They stood like that for a while, a disquiet crawling down Draco's spine. For all that this night seemed dead like any other, he felt that something waited for him in the dark. He hadn't reached his house yet: another three hundred steps from the frozen disc of light, and he would have to trace the grimy walls with his bare, numb fingers if he wanted to be sure. The awful knowledge pulsed in his head like a migraine. His cigarette burned to ash. The streetlamp stared at him, uncertain.

With a sigh, Draco resumed his walk, forcibly keeping his gait even. The light dogged his steps, loyal and compact. The fear was irrational, Draco told himself, an echo of old days in the Dark Lord's employ, of sleepless nights in a drafty, damp Azkaban cell. An itch from his days as an underground Healer, mending flesh and bone from forbidden spells and jinxes. He was still young then, and his cramped flat reeked of rust and blood. He learned the shape of scars left by werewolf claws and dragon teeth then; he didn't ask questions, but he found his own answers. In his work, he felt as if he'd found a kind of forgiveness. A kind of peace.

And then, Astoria. Love found him, set him alight. _She_ found him. Dragged him out in the open, like a mangy dog. She believed in him. She gave him a son, a job. Acceptance. Another kind of peace. He should have known it wouldn't last long.

The light stayed behind.

Draco reached out with trembling fingers, tracing carved wood and rough stone along his path. The night seemed to deform everything, even textures: where Draco knew were windows nailed shut with smooth, polished planks of wood, his swollen fingers found jagged ridges and grooves. He kept groping as his heels caught on the uprooted cobblestones made even more dangerous by a deceptively thin film of frost and snow and something sticky. Muffled sounds slid into Draco's ears, their source either perilously near or too far off to bother.

He was almost home now. His home, the dirty den in Knockturn he had kept through his fairytale marriage before Astoria's infatuation ran out. It was all he had now: the flat where he spent the nights, writhing helplessly on the bed and wondering why his own passion had come so late, why he couldn't have loved Astoria when she wanted it. This, and the job she had found him, a minor position at the Customs Office, looking out for smuggled magical artefacts and ingredients. He worked with Muggles all the time now. Father would have been thrilled.

His son, his job, his flat, and a few old patients who came, unseen, at nightfall to lick old wounds and let Draco help them find a bit of peace. That was his life now.

More ridges, more grooves. Except – that was his door. Horizontal, vertical, all over. As if –

Claws. 

His clothes clung clammily to the sweaty skin of his back as something dragged on the frayed hem of his cloak. He heard breathing. It was no longer muffled, as if an animal had its muzzle shut; it was heavy and wet against his ear. Something sharp dragged along his cold cheek and caught on his shoulder, then flashed white in the corner of his vision. Teeth.

Draco exhaled against the disfigured surface of the door. The crunchy layer of frost immediately turned into fat droplets sluicing down, like juices down a slab of meat. He fumbled with the lock. The heavy weight pressed against his back hindered his movements. His vertebrae were in the way of a stranger's heaving chest, and he knew his neck could be easily snapped.

He opened the door and dragged the stranger in. Without light, his hands sought information that his brain was too slow to follow: thick, large clawed hands, a light dusting of fur, crooked teeth that nipped Draco's fingertips; fine clothes, very fine, perhaps a uniform; thick hair; cold metal where the face was – a stuck weapon? – glasses. The growl was unfamiliar, frightening and fascinating. A new werewolf. 

The stranger curled in Draco's lap, panting against his chest. The werewolf's teeth kept catching on Draco's cloak buckle. He must come recommended, Draco thought wildly, sinking his fingers into the wild mane of hair on the stranger's head. An old patient – an old client – only they knew. So many of them around, too many, all hiding after the war, pretending their horrors didn't happen. Except the days when they came to Draco, some, like Lavender Brown, to pay for their Wolfsbane and their secrets, some, like Bill Weasley, to remember how to breathe. Draco could not tell how far gone the newcomer was, which way it would turn out for him. He scratched the werewolf's head lightly, trying to convey reassurance. 

It was safe now. Here, everything was safe. Draco's own side ached in sympathy. The raised, mangled flesh that still remembered Greyback's bite grew hard and unyielding under the questing touch of the other's clawed hand. The moment the stranger pressed his palm onto Draco's side, he grew still, as if finding a final affirmation. Safe. Among one's own. 

The werewolf radiated warmth, and Draco's fingers seemed to thaw. Blood rushed to his cheeks in shame: he ought to help, that's what the werewolf had come for, and here Draco was, leeching off comfort. But the stranger only clung tighter, moaning and yapping very softly, like a tiny puppy, and Draco curled his body around him, whispering reassurances in the other's ear.

The dark settled around them, keeping everything at a distance. Everything beyond scent and warmth could wait until the morning.

After all this time, safe.


End file.
